STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN LIFE (N.I.Pirogov)

The rise of the Russian school of surgery coincided with the development of revolutionary-democratic ideas in Russia. Pirogov, the founder of scientific surgery, was a contemporary of Belinsky, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, the most advanced men of the time, Pirogov's childhood passed in the rime of Pushkin and the Decembrists All this could not but affect the world outlook of the great surgeon and thinker. He dedicated all his activities, all his scientific endeavours to the people, subordinating all his efforts to that great goal and urging his pupils to serve humanity honestly and unselfishly by working to protect life and alleviate physical suffering.

Pirogov took part in four wars and tens of thousands of wounded passed through his hands

Searching for ways to save wounded limbs, Pirogov arrived at the idea of the rigid plaster cast. Once-during a visit to the studio of a sculptor he knew, Pirogov noticed how fast plaster of Paris hardened when spread on fabric, and he realized what an important aid the plaster of Paris cast could be for surgeons. Pirogov used this cast for the first time in the Caucasian war as early as in 1847. During the heroic defence of Sebastopol in 1854 - 1855, working at field hospitals and under shell fire, Pirogov extensively employed the gypsum cast and resection of joints instead of hasty amputations. The rigid plaster cast is the pride of Russian surgery

The great surgeon was also the initiator of the extensive use of anaesthesia during operations When elsewhere in Europe anaesthesia was still a secret of individual doctors and a loud advertising hullabaloo was raised around one experimental operation made on January 19, 1847, by the obstetrician Simpson, Pirogov was already engaged in large-scale scientific experiments on painless operations,

At the beginning of 1847 he published a major treatise under the modest title of " Records and Physiological Observations of the Action of Ether Vapours on the Animal Organism" In this work Pirogov describes 50 operations under anaesthesia, 40 cases of anaesthesia of healthy people, and many observations of animals. Pirogov was the first to use ether m removing cancer of the mammary gland.

In 1847 m the Caucasus and in 1855 in Sebastopol, Pirogov performed 10, 000 operations under anaesthesia The Voyenno-Meditsmsky Zhurnal (Military Medical Journal) said at the time: " Russia, outstripping Europe has demonstrated to the entire enlightened world not only the possibility but also, the indisputable value of using ether for operations on the wounded on the field of battle. We hope that henceforth the ether apparatus will be as indispensable as the surgeon's knife to every medical man working on the battlefield".

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